Greece’s Ailing State Utility Buys Connected FYROM Energy Firm

By TNH StaffOctober 10, 2018

(Photo by Eurokinissi/Vasilis Rebapis)

The major opposition New Democracy wants to know why Greece’s financially struggling public utility company PPC bought an energy firm in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) co-owned by that country’s Vice-Premier.

The two countries agreed to a deal that would see FYROM be called North Macedonia, have a Macedonian language, culture and identity and have the door opened to NATO entry and European Union accession talks if both countries ratify the agreement.

New Democracy said the PPC purchase of EDS at a time when the Greek company is having trouble getting payments from customers during a long-running energy and austerity crisis raised questions, suggesting a possible conflict of interest.

“At a moment when Greeks citizens are paying dearly for a collapsing PPC, the government forces it (PPC) to purchase, for 4.8 million euros, a Skopje power company that last year posted damages of 5.4 million euros,” the Conservatives spokeswoman Maria Spyraki charged.

New Democracy lawmaker Vassilis Kikilias in early September had referred to a “political decision” to purchase EDS by PPC and demanded to know who gave the “green light”.

EDS’s primary shareholder at the time of the sale is the current Vice-Premier for Economic Affairs, Koco Angjuse.

New Democracy wondered why the deal came before the name change agreement was reached. T
EDS was founded in 2012 and has subsidiaries in Serbia, Slovakia and Kosovo. The group is also a member of the Hungarian Power exchange (HUPX), with trading licenses for Serbia, Kosovo, Croatia, Bulgaria and Hungary.